Washington has announced it won’t make or buy any more anti-personnel landmines (APL), but declined to destroy the 3 million units of existing stock. Washington still expects to join the international agreement banning such weapons at some point.

“The United States took the step of declaring it will not
produce or otherwise acquire any anti-personnel landmines in the
future, including to replace existing stockpiles as they
expire,” the White House said in a statement following the
declaration of such intent made by the US delegation at the Mine
Ban Treaty conference in Mozambique.

The conference, with over 1,000 international participants, was
organized in Mozambique’s Maputo for a good reason. War in
Mozambique ended in 1992, but despite decades of international
efforts to clear unexploded munitions in the country, landmine
casualties continue to occur.

Landmines kill, according to UN estimates, from 15,000 to 20,000
people a year in dozens of countries and cripple many thousands
more. Landmines are scattered throughout an estimated 78
countries and the majority of victims are civilian: children,
women and the elderly, making up approximately 80 percent of the
casualties.

“Our delegation in Maputo made clear that we are diligently
pursuing solutions that would be compliant with and ultimately
allow the United States to accede to the Ottawa Convention — the
treaty banning the use, stockpiling, production and transfer of
APL,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden
said in a statement. She stressed that: “Other aspects of our
land-mine policy remain under consideration.”

The Mine Ban Treaty signed in Ottawa in 1997 is aimed at
eliminating anti-personnel landmines worldwide.

President Bill Clinton declared a goal to join the Ottawa treaty,
but later American top brass talked the Bush administration into
pulling back.

So far, 161 UN member states have signed the document, but 34
countries haven’t - among them the US, China and Russia.

The stockpile of anti-personnel landmines is estimated at 110
million worldwide, most of which are already embedded. Landmines
are cheap, between US$3 and US$75, but they are disastrously
effective, particularly because their form and color attract
children.

Spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden pointed out: “The US shares the
humanitarian goals of the Ottawa Convention and is the world’s
single largest financial supporter of humanitarian mine action,
providing more than $2.3 billion in aid since 1993 in more than
90 countries for conventional weapons destruction programs.”

The US has not produced landmines since the late 1990s, but up
until now has reserved the right and capability to resume
production at any time.

The US still possesses over 3 million anti-personnel landmines
stockpiled in inventory, admitted Rear Admiral John Kirby, the
Pentagon press secretary. The latest statement said that the
Pentagon is not going to replace expired mines, but it hasn’t
announced that the mines will be eliminated.

The Pentagon claims it has used anti-personnel mines on very rare
occasions in its latest military campaigns.

The last time the US army used anti-personnel mines extensively
was during the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon claims that in the
latest Afghan campaign landmines were used only once, in 2002.

One of the advocates of a total ban on landmines is Vermont
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, who said that the White House's
decision is “incremental, but significant,” adding that:
“An obvious next step is for the Pentagon to destroy its
remaining stockpile of mines, which do not belong in the arsenal
of civilized nations,” said Leahy, as quoted by Reuters.

Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Washington-based Arms
Control Association, said in a statement that America’s message
from Maputo “is useful in that it underscores land mines are
not essential to US security and are on their way out, but it
falls short of what can and should be done,” said Kimball,
as quoted by the Washington Post.

“Without a commitment to destroy some or all of the United
States’ existing stockpile of landmines and on a schedule, the
pledge not to produce or acquire landmines will have little
material effect on existing US stockpiles for many, many years to
come,” Kimball said.

While the US decision has been hailed by arms control groups,
some American lawmakers have a different view on the issue.

Representative Randy Forbes pointed out that this decision could
threaten security in the Korean Peninsula, where landmines are
being used in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South
Korea, whereas Representative Buck McKeon, chairman of the House
Armed Services Committee, said that the decision is “bad for
the security of our men and women in uniform.”

“The president owes our military an explanation for ignoring
their advice and putting them at risk, all for a Friday morning
press release,” said McKeon.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
has maintained recently that landmines are an “important tool
in the arsenal of the armed forces of the United States.”

Steve Goose, head of delegation for the International Campaign to
Ban Landmines, told AP in a telephone interview from the
Mozambique conference that the US should set a date to join the
Mine Ban Treaty and start the elimination of landmine stockpiles.

“While they are saying they are working toward banning them
in the future, they are leaving open the option of continuing to
use them in the meantime, which is kind of a contradictory way to
approach things,” Goose said.